Monday, July 23, 2012

Happy 21st Birthday Miss B!!


How can my sweet little cousin be turning 21 today!?!?! Seems like yesterday you were...













Wow time sure files! And now you are on a plane, heading to Vegas to do up your 21st birthday in a big way! I am so bummed out that I am not getting to go with you (sometimes being a responsible adult sucks!) but I know you will have a blast! Happy Birthday and I love you Miss B!!

Friday, July 13, 2012

Hey Kids, Look At My Crayons

About a month or so ago we were cleaning out the art room at the office and realized something: we have WAY to many crayons!! We had so many new boxes that had never been opened we decided that we could part with some of the shoe boxes full of broken older crayons. As we started packing them up to donate to another organization that could use them, I decided to save a big old bag of them in case we ever wanted to do some melted crayon art.

Fast forward a few days and an hour or two on Pinterest later....I had a brilliant idea!! I was going to use some of those crayons to make some awesome shaped rainbow crayons for the kids to use at Camp CARE!

After a little research, I knew it would be best to use the oven but we didn't want to spend a bunch of money on shaped silicone bake ware just to melt some gross old crayons in it. Yet, I found several people who said they used ice trays in the microwave and it worked just as well. It was settled then - I would find some ice trays and we would just do it in the microwave.

To start we needed to get all the paper off of the crayons. Because they were older crayons the paper didn't just peel off as easily as I hoped. A little trick we figured out that worked really well was to use a knife or a something with a needle point to slide down the paper to cut it. Then it would just slide right off in one piece!

Once you get a good selection of crayons unwrapped, start breaking them into small pieces to fill the molds. We had a lot of fun playing with different color combinations from simple red, white and blue to a full on rainbow.



Once you get all your molds filled it is time to head to the microwave. It was suggested you melt in 4 or 5 minute increments, checking how they are progressing in between.  At first it looked like things were going really well then I opened the microwave door to this....



Apparently the glass in the microwave got too hot and melted a hole (actually 2 holes) in the bottom of the mold. This is really when I should have given up, but oh no - Allie had a BRILLIANT idea! Put a dish towel under the mold to help shield it from the direct heat of the glass.



A few moments later the smell of smoke confirmed, that I should NOT be allowed in a kitchen even if it is for crafting. Yep, I caught the dish towel on fire...in a microwave.



At that point I pretty much chalked all this up to a crafty fail and decided that I should call it a day. (Not sure how the board would respond to "I am sorry I burned the office down. But look at these re-purposed crayons we made!" )


Allie: 0 - Crayon Craft Project: 2 

But never fear my friends there will be a rematch! Stay tuned! :)

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Summer Of Cupcakes: Gigi's Cupcakes


All aboard the cupcake express!! The third stop on our The Summer of Cupcakes tasting tour: Gigi's Cupcakes While they are a franchised Cupcakary I have more people tell me this had to be one of the locations we visited because they were simply amazing. After doing some research about the company the more excited I was about trying them. I love hearing about people who started built their dream from the ground up and Gigi's story is a great one! 


Location:   Over 50 stores in 18 states, with 7 in Texas. Dallas and Plano being the closest to Fort Worth. 

Hours:      Very by location. As a bonus you can place orders online 24 hours a day for any of the locations! 

Pricing:    $3.25 each 

Flavor Selection:   They have more amazing flavors that you can imagine! Just check out their Spring and Summer menu!


Okay, let's get down to business!


We went to the Dallas location at Lovers and Inwood. And the fun and girly exterior already had me excited!



Not only were we offered a sample as soon as we walked in the door, we quickly learned that they were running a Monday special of  "Buy Two, Get Two Free!"

As much as we didn't really need that many cupcakes, I am not going to lie...I was excited because I was having a hard time deciding what I wanted! 





And the 4 cupcakes we decided to go with?  (clockwise)

Scarlett's Red Velvet: Red velvet cake with a vanilla filling topped with cream cheese frosting, a white chocolate heart and red sugar crystals.

Wedding Cake: White cake topped with a vanilla buttercream frosting and sprinkled with white nonpareils.

Miss PrincessWhite cake baked with fresh strawberries, topped with a cream cheese frosting, pink sugar crystals and a pink fondant crown.

Texas Milk Chocolate:  Milk chocolate cake topped with milk chocolate frosting, chocolate sprinkles and a bright yellow fondant star.


And the results........................



  • The only criticism both Kipper and I had was that they didn't have forks and that there was no place to sit and eat.
  • They do have counter space that you can stand at to eat. 
  • And of course Kipper was happy because Milk was on the beverage menu! :) 
  • If you are an icing person like us - THIS PLACE ROCKS! The icing is as tall as the cake part! On the flip side, if you aren't big on icing you might not love it as much as we did. It wasn't the best cake we had ever tasted, but the combination with the icing was a perfect marriage! 
The final verdict? Thumbs up all around!!! 


Stay tuned for our next stop at Bliss Cupcakes & Confections!